Thanks. I must say that I think goalkeeper is potentially the easiest position to do, because it is the most demarked in that there is no conflict over whether a player was a keeper or not, and it is the position in the history of the game which has changed the least. That means you have the full 150 years of the game to choose from for your keepers. Other positions have been around only maybe 70 years or so (and in some countries even less than that) which gives you less to choose from. In addition there have been some good lists already done on the topic such as the IFHHS's list, which gave me a great starting point to work from. Sadly many of the other positions were not as easy.
Yes, you're possibly right on this. I was intending to put him into the revised list, and then found that I had messed up some of the numbering and actually had 104 players in my initial 100. I then had to get rid of 4 and couldn't add any more in. Bruno Martini dropped from about 80th completely out of the list!
I'll come back to some of the other bits when I get more time. On this though I think there are possibly a few reasons. 1. He's the only keeper to ever win the Ballon D'Or. 2. He was a key player of the 1960 European Champions. I can't remember if he was the captain but he was certainly the most notable player of the first European Champions. 3. Like Pele he was the first great of the television era. That tends to count for quite a bit I think. I genuinely think he was a great keeper though. Whether he was head and shoulders the best is a matter of debate. He had some huge games though. When England played the Rest of the World in 1963 he made 4 superb saves from Jimmy Greaves. That was a very high profile game, and played no small part in him winning the Ballon D'Or. Goalkeeper can be a difficult one to judge though. I mean many English fans would put Banks ahead of Shilton. Equally how do we really compare say Zamora to Buffon? Technically I think that Buffon is as good as anyone that has ever played. I don't think he has any weaknesses. I think in ten years he could well be regarded as the best ever. He could conceivably play another 3 World Cups.
Great work Comme. Curious you considered to pick Bruno Martini (even if you ultimately didn't) ahead of other French GK's. I see five of them ahead of him - Barthez (of course), Lama, Bats, Georges Carnus and Julien Dupui. Dupui (voted French GK of the century in 1999 by L'Equipe) in particular should have been picked in your top 100 I think, maybe also Carnus and Bats. Anyway one French GK (Barthez) in your list is not enough
Bit disappointed not to see Gigi's uncle, Lorenzo Buffon, on the list. I didn't expect him to feature too high but would have though he'd be worthy of at least a place in the top 100. Other than that, I'd say that this is a great list, a lot of hard work and research clearly went into it and I don't think too many people can question the majority of your inclusions. Great job, well done.
Thanks as well. I actually had three French keepers in the list I believe: Pierre Chayrigues, Julien Darui, and Barthez. Martini was in initally partly because of the frequency with which I think Onze Mundial picked him in their annual polls, but then they never seem to be that impartial. I can assure you that Bats, Lama and Carnus were all on my short list. In fact looking back at it, it seems that the French were the people who had the most close calls on it. They probably had 4 I'd list between 100-120.
Interesting as well. I again had Lorenzo Buffon in my initial list but cut him out. The people who were in my initial 100 but got cut were: Bruno Martini, Lorenzo Buffon, Silviu Lung and Pat Bonner. Now I can't use that excuse any more. Players who were ultimately on my short list but fell short Julio Cesar, Shay Given, Uli Stein, Friedl Koncilia, Joel Bats, Georges Carnus, Bruce Grobbelaar, Borislav Mikhailov, Alexis Thepot, Christian Piot, Claude Abbes, Jean-Paul Bertrand-Dermanes, Eike Immel, Bill Brown, Francesco Toldo, Otto Konrad, Gernot Fraydl, Pierre Bernard, Colin McDonald, Bretislav Dolejsi,
Grobbelaar should have made it. He didn't get a chance to play at a major tornament but he won many trophies at Liverpool. I noticed that you didn't rate him highly in you countdown for the greatest English First Division/EPL goalies. Why do you rate him so lowly? I'm extremely surprised that Schmeichel is ahead of Zoff. As successful as Schmeichel was, how could he have been better than Zoff? I don't see how Schmeichel's EPL titles and Euro 92 win are superior to Zoff's trophy collection. Yashin going #1 was predictable in my book but I don't believe that he is really the greatest, despite being innovative in his technique. I'd vote Zoff as the greatest but if there was one goalie to be rated ahead of him, it didn't surprise me that Yashin would be the one. IMO, Buffon will be rated as the greatest once his career ends.
He was a very good keeper. He made some phenomenal saves, but he was a little bit unpredictable. He could make some bad errors. He was a contender, but playing for Zimbabwe didn't help him. It's not all based on success though. Schmeichel didn't have the advantage of playing in front of Scirea, Cabrini, Gentile etc. I think that Schmeichel was a really superb keeper. He had all the attributes. Was a very good shot stopper, had brilliant command of his area, was great on crosses and excellent distribution. Zoff was also a brilliant keeper, but I do think he had some advantages in playing so long for Italy and Juventus. I think a lot of his reputation was built on being the captain of a WC winning team. He was slightly vulnerable to long shots (as was Maier). To be fair to him though, most of the footage you see was him at a very old age. If people looked at Shilton at Italia 90 alone they would remember quite a slow keeper which really wasn't the case. Zoff was a great (as shown by a number 3 rating), but I'm not sure he was supreme either. What did you regard to be his prime strengths?
True. The likes of Gary Pallister, Steve Bruce, John Sivebaek and Lars Olsen aren't anywhere as good as the defenders Zoff played with. Morten Olsen was ageing when Schmeichel became a regular with Denmark. In terms of ability, Schmeichel was better than Zoff in one-on-one situations and that was due to his more imposing figure. Another thing that would make schmeichel more appealing was his long-range throws. Some of the goals he concided at WC 74 and WC 78 didn't help, especially against Holland. I'm not sure how Yashin was on long-range shots but if Chile 62 is anything to go by, he did concided some absurd goals against Colombia and both goals he concided against Chile were from distance. Going back to Zoff, he was an experienced campaigner for Italy (112 caps) but he could have earned more. In 1966, he was considered to be a potential third-choice goalie for Italy at the World Cup but Edmundo Fabbri didn't want to show favouritism towards his old club, Mantova. At Euro 68, he won the trophy while playing for Napoli at club level and at that time, it was rare for Napoli players to get a regular call-up for Italy. Napoli was considered to be a scudetto threat while Zoff was there and those were arguably Napoli's best chances for a title before before Maradona came. 1974-75 was probably their best chance in between the Zoff and Maradona days. He probably should have played at Mexico 70 also but Ferruccio Valcareggi favoured Enrico Albertosi, who won the league with Gigi Riva's Cagliari. Aside from his leadership and his longevity, he had great reflexes and he was a great decision-maker. Some of his saves from close range are amongst the best I've seen.
Yashin also did very well in the Soviet League that year (1963), conceding very few goals. I have yet to see a credible "Top All-Time Goalkeepers" list that did not have Yashin at #1. His dominance in his profession is unparalleled in football. Not even Pelé can claim to have topped every credible list of field players ever. Hence I wonder what it is that made Yashin the default #1 keeper of all-time for everyone that deals with football's greatest players? I am not questioning that he was one of the all-time great keepers, but he should have been nearly flawless to achieve this "all-time best ever at his position" dominance. There have been so many other fantastic goalkeepers that the one who apparently overshadows all others to such an extent should be pretty damn good. The three points you listed above are in my opinion not enough, especially if one considers his failure at the '62 World Cup. I'm just wondering what made people believe Yashin was this nearly super-human goalkeeper that had no competition!
The Yugoslavian Petar 'Radi' Radenkovic pioneered the school of sweeper keeper before Gatti did (he was 10 years older).
I don't think that he is unrivalled. I think really any of the top 8 would have been genuine potential winners. But the thing is that you have to have a reason to go against the orthodoxy unless you simply want to be contrary. I mean I've seen Banks and Zoff put top in polls and selections. I myself selected Schmeichel as the first keeper in the all time draft, but who would you have gone for first?
Here's a question for you all. This is the only list without any South Americans in the top 10. What do you make of that? Have S America produced a keeper worthy of the top 10? Are they over-represented in the top 100? I mean Julio Cesar is the first S American keeper I can remember who I consider a match for the very best Europeans.
As far as Brazilians go, I would rate Taffarel as the best but would still place him nowhere near the top 10. Higuita and Chilavert were far too eratic and were only really talked up because of their wild antics. I've been told that Ladislao Mazurkiewicz was a very talented goalkeeper in his day but I haven't seen enough of him to pass judgement. Really, it seem as though Argentina is the South American country which has raised the most celebrated goalkeepers; I'm thinking Pumpido, Gatti, Filol, Carrizo. Carrizo certainly I would argue could be worthy of a place in the top 10. Again, I've seen little of him, but from what I've heard and read, it seems like he was one of the very best keepers to play the game.
Selling Chilavert far too short, IMO. He was the best goalkeeper in South America during Velez's glory years, and was their best player when they won the Libertadores.
It depends on whether we are strictly talking goalkeeping skills or overall impact on the team. Chilavert was a good goalkeeper, but his greatness lay in his leadership quality. In that sense, he was like a Pasarella or a Roy Keane. He was the soul of his team. He was Velez, he was Paraguay. He willed his team to win and he got in the mind of his opponents. And that is a particularly difficult thing to accomplish when your position is goalkeeper.
Yes. Carrizo was a pioneer, in terms of coming out of the penalty area with the ball and starting the flow of play, and moving up to cut the angles of the attacking players. But Gatti took it much further. When his team was on attack he would often stand outside the penalty area and he went for any ball that got past midfield. Also he was a master at cutting angles and very good with his feet. He was a pioneer of that style, at least in Argentina. Perhaps he was influenced by Petar Radenkovic, but I haven't heard Gatti ever mention him. Colombia's Higuita is probably the closest later day example of Gatti's style, and another who comes to mind is Mexico's Jorge Campos (who some Americans may remember from his time with the LA Galaxy). Although, both were much more prone to get caught out of position than Gatti.
I would think Amadeo Carrizo is a possible top ten. The only thing that can be held against him is Argentina's poor performance at the 58 World Cup, when he didn't exactly distinguish himself any more than his teammates did, particularly in the match against Czechoslovakia, a 6-1 loss. But he had some amazing games against Brazil. In fact Argentina, to a large extent due to Carrizo, did very well against the talented teams Brazil had in that era, including a memorable win over Pele's team at the Copa de las Naciones in 1964 when Carrizo stopped a penalty from Gerson. The story is that the Argentines in 58 were ill prepared, and overwhelmed by the Swedish women and the abundance of alcohol. But whatever the reason, it's there in his record. That match against Czechoslovakia is the one stain in his career, and perhaps might be enough to keep him out of the top ten, in spite of his considerable success over the years.
For sure the Argentinians by far were/are the best & flashiest goalies in SA history. What do you think about Fillol?... Would he be behind Gatti & Carrizzo?...
I don't think they are overrepresented. The South American keepers you picked are all world class and I think they belong. I also don't think they are underrepresented. You did a good job of balancing the number of players from different parts of the world, which must not have been easy. If you ask me about other Argentines who might have belonged in the top 100 list, the first that come to mind are these two: 1) Rogelio Dominguez Dominguez starred at Racing Club, where he won three Argentine titles in the late 40's and early 50's, and caught the attention of Real Madrid. He played with Real alongside Di Stefano during their golden era, and was part of those championship teams. One notable match was during his first year at Real Madrid, in the 58/59 European Cup semifinals, when he stopped a penalty from Brazil's Vava, against derby rivals Atletico Madrid, which was key to move Real Madrid to the final. Later in his career he played also in Uruguay and Brazil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogelio_Domínguez 2) Miguel Angel Santoro He was the starting goalkeeper for the legendary Independiente squad that dominated Copa Libertadores in the 60's and 70's. During his time Independiente won 4 league titles, 4 Copa Libertadores, as well as one Intercontinental and one Copa interamericana. I think that is one of the great teams that few outside Argentina remember, and Santoro was a worthy member of it. After a long career at Independiente, he moved to Spain, where he played for Hercules a couple of years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Ángel_Santoro Did these two come up at all in your considerations?
I remember him playing for Flamengo. He was contracted as a super-star & behaved like that till he got a terrible 'frango' between the legs (I guess) in a Fla x Flu & then his prestige in Brazil went down the drain. I understand he was at the end of his career. Sorry for the link in Portuguese.